


You Can't Always Get What You Want

by silveronthetree



Category: DCU - Comicverse, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 19:39:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveronthetree/pseuds/silveronthetree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This could be the most inefficient way to solve a case Tim has ever seen, but he misses hanging out with Dick, so he isn't going to complain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can't Always Get What You Want

**Author's Note:**

  * For [futuresong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/futuresong/gifts).



> I find it very hard to write stories about Dick Grayson where people don't have crushes on him. This isn't one of them and it features unrequited pining by Tim. 
> 
> Many thanks to my wonderful betas.

Tim picks up his cell phone with some trepidation when he sees 'Dick Grayson calling' appear on the screen. Dick doesn't usually call while he's at school unless it's an emergency. 

Dick barely waits for him to finish his greeting before he starts talking. "Are you doing anything important with the Titans this weekend?" Dick sounds rushed and out of breath but a query about the weekend on a Tuesday doesn't exactly scream emergency, so Tim relaxes a little. Judging from the time and the lack of background noise, Tim deduces that Dick's doing his morning workout. Tim's between classes, with one period to go before lunch but knowing the hours Nightwing keeps, that sounds about right. 

"I don't think so," Tim replies. Cassie had said something about a weekend off and he hasn't made any concrete arrangements yet. He needs something else to do so he doesn't have to lie even more to his parents. He'd vaguely planned to hole up at the Batcave and play with the parameters from the temperature/crime rate simulation he's been running, because Batman had sounded interested in it, but a weekend doing anything with Dick beat even that.

"Great," Dick says and Tim can picture the bright grin accompanying his words and tries not to think too hard about the body attached to it, especially not while he's working out. "I've got a case that needs your particular expertise. Come over on Friday as soon as school is done."

"OK," Tim says as he lets himself be pulled away in Bernard's wake. He doesn't want to be late for class, even if it is because of Dick.

"Wear civvies," Dick adds.

"Do I need…?" he starts to ask, but Dick has already hung up. Tim sighs and tries to work out what the weekend might entail. Should he bring his laptop? He knows he's going to be distracted by it for the rest of the week.

***

Dick's waiting at the train station when Tim's train gets in on Friday. He looks thinner and Tim tries to remember exactly how long it's been since he saw Dick in the daylight. His hug is a strong as ever and Tim lets himself bury his nose in the faded cotton of Dick’s Hudson U sweatshirt for just a second. Hugs from Dick don't happen enough. Tim has mostly trained himself not to blush but he welcomes it when Dick gives him a noogie before letting him go. It’s supremely big brothery (and not in a literary way) and a very good reminder. 

Dick keeps up a steady stream of chatter all the way to the car and continues as he drives through Bludhaven. Tim notices immediately when they take a turning that doesn’t lead to Dick’s apartment and a few blocks later starts to review his mental map of Bludhaven to work out where they might be headed. There isn’t much to see in this area and they're headed further into an unfamiliar and almost entirely residential area.

“So where are we headed? Do I need to change into my uniform?” Tim asks.

“Nope.” Dick grins at him. “This weekend is going to be a non-uniform zone. We’re here to have fun.”

Tim stiffens. “I thought you said it was a case.” He tries to keep his tone light. He doesn't like cancelling on the Teen Titans unless it's strictly necessary, even if they are only hanging out. Who knows what could happen?

Dick picks up on his tone immediately. “Oh, it is a case. But cases can be fun too.” He pulls up to a shabby looking red-bricked apartment building and easily slides the car into a tiny parking space that's just been vacated. “I’ll explain inside,” he says, grabbing Tim’s bag from the back seat and leading the way inside.

The apartment is very Dick, with papers and used mugs all over the coffee table and clothes everywhere. Through the half open bedroom door, Tim can see bookshelves and an unmade bed. In addition to the coffee table, the main room contains an enormous TV and an overstuffed and worn brown leather couch. Dick has clearly been living here. There’s a very old picture of Dick and Donna in civvies next to the TV. The kitchen opens straight onto the main room and it contains the biggest fridge he’s ever seen outside a restaurant, bigger even than Alfred’s. If Tim were inclined to hyperbole he'd wonder how the floor is holding it up. 

“When did you move?”

“I haven’t,” Dick says shoving a pile of clean towels off the couch to make space for Tim.

Tim looks around the room pointedly and raises an eyebrow.

“I haven’t left Clancy’s but yeah, I’ve been staying here for a few days. I needed a bolt hole and I wanted to make it seem lived in.”

Dick sinks onto the couch next to Tim, winces and pulls out a remote from underneath him, dumping it onto the pile of papers on the coffee table. The papers are mostly takeout menus. 

“So what’s the case?”

Dick ignores the question “I hope you’re hungry because we’re gonna order some pizza and I was thinking of movies.”

“Awesome!” Tim is hungry. He’d barely had time for lunch because Bernard had dragged him off to show him a new student in his class. But that wasn’t what he’d asked. “And the case?”

“That is the case.” 

Huh? Tim doesn't say it but his face must speak volumes because Dick grins at him, clearly amused at his confusion. 

“There’s been this spate of robberies around in city, all committed by people pretending to deliver pizza," Dick explains. "I’ve been tracking it for a few weeks but it’s been pretty random. The victims have made very different orders at various times of day but it's mostly been confined to the weekend. When I plotted it out they’ve been concentrated in this area with a few outliers." 

Tim's beginning to see where Dick is going with this and he can't quite believe it.  
"All the orders are genuine and go through the restaurants. Someone arrives with a fake pizza around half an hour after the order has been placed and forces their way in to remove anything valuable. No one’s been killed, but there've been a few serious injuries. Unfortunately, the department hasn't put it together yet and it's not looking like they will." 

"So that's why we're investigating?"

“Yeah. I basically plan to order pizza until the fish takes the bait," Dick finishes. 

“Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight,” Tim says. He's sure there are many ways this could be done more efficiently, but Dick’s been so weird about this. Renting an apartment just to catch these people? It isn’t very Nightwing. Nightwing's far more likely to stakeout pizza places on a nearby rooftop and put in wiretaps. But if that's the way he wants to do things. Dick has far more experience at this sort of thing than Tim so he's just going to go along with it. 

"Any descriptions of the perpetrator?" he asks.

***

Tim sorts through the leaflets on the coffee table. He pulls out his laptop and creates a spread sheet to keep track of the orders. He puts in estimated delivery time and company. He’ll be here for 48 hours and there are 33 leaflets on the table. If they order a pizza an hour they’ll still get about 6 hours sleep each night and get through all the companies. 

Dick looks over Tim’s shoulder at the screen. “Huh. I was just going to take that pile and start ordering.”

Tim shrugs. This is the way he’d do it. 

“Let’s order the first one and then we can follow your spread sheet,” Dick suggests. "I'd do more than one an hour, though."

Tim tosses him a leaflet for American Pizza Inc. 

“We’re doing this alphabetically then?” Dick says, picking up the phone and starting to dial.

“Yep. And then sorting by opening times.”

***

Tim looks through Dick’s movie collection as Dick fetches soda, picking up a copy of The Little Mermaid and opening the box to see if that’s actually what’s inside. “Explain to me why you have so many Disney movies.”

He can hear the clink of ice falling into glasses and then Dick comes back. “Cass likes ‘em.” 

“You watch Disney movies with Cass?” Tim’s world tilts a little. “Seriously? What does she like?”

“Yep, seriously. Cinderella mostly, and she’s got a soft spot for Mulan.” Dick laughs. “But she threw Beauty and the Beast across the room last time she was here. She didn’t explain why.”

“Huh.” Batgirl is a mystery to him but he’d never peg her as the cartoon type, not in a million years. He hadn’t realised that Cass and Dick had hung out together and he supresses the wave of jealousy.

Tim secretly likes Beauty and the Beast, although his favourite had been the Sword in the Stone as a child. Dick doesn’t have it though so he picks out the Indiana Jones Trilogy instead. He’s only ever watched about ten minutes of one of the movies until his dad had turned it off, citing the fact that it was a damaging and inaccurate picture of archaeology. Tim had been enjoying the nods to the classics of the thirties and he's always wanted to see the rest. 

"The cameras outside will let us see who's arriving," Dick says from his seat on the couch. "The reports say the the fake pizza box is pretty generic, with "pizza" in red letters in Times New Roman. Only two places in Bludhaven use them so it should be a good indicator. The perpetrator is white and dresses in a red polo shirt and black pants, with a black baseball cap. It's clearly been passing as a pizza delivery uniform. I haven't found any clear descriptions of his face, if of course they're all committed by the same person. "

Tim is surprised that he hadn't noticed the cameras. "The cameras must be well hidden." He sticks the DVD into the TV and sits down next to Dick.

"You didn't see them?" Dick sounds pleased. "Good, they're a new design with built-in motion sensors. I've got the feed running here." He grabs a laptop from under the couch and opens it up to show a view of an empty hallway and another of the door opposite Dick's apartment.

***

Raiders of the Lost Ark is twenty minutes in, as the first proximity alarm goes and Dick checks the feed from the first security camera. The delivery guy doesn't fit their pattern wearing a distinctive uniform and holding a box stamped with 'American Pizza Inc'. But when the doorbell goes, Dick jumps over the back of the sofa to answer it. Tim watches him pull on a baseball cap that shades his face and watches his body language change to a slouching semi-shuffle. It’s as unthreatening as he can get. Tim holds himself ready out of sight. 

It’s an anti-climax when the guy at the door just hands Dick the pizza box and a bottle of Zesti with a grunt and holds out his hand for the money. Dick hands over a wad of bills. The only reaction from the guy is his eyebrows shooting up when Dick waves away the change he’s making.

***

Four hours, two movies and a lot of Zesti later, Tim and Dick are eating a couple of slices from their seventh pizza. They hadn't actually tried all of the pizzas because the one from Bludhaven Fish’n’Pizza was inedible. Despite the fact it was supposed to be pepperoni, it smelt and tasted like the wrong part of the restaurant's name and not, as Dick had said in an anchovy goodness way. For most of the rest they’d only had slice or two before they’d been placed in the fridge. 

Tim is seriously considering starting a blog rating Bludhaven's pizzas, he'd started making notes after the third pizza and he's now got enough material. He's stuffed and worried about being able to move, let alone do the Robin thing if the robber strikes. 

“What are you planning to do with the rest of the pizza?" he asks Dick. "I don't think I can eat anymore and there could be twenty six more to go."

“Well that’s what the fridge is for. We can store them there and then donate them to the food bank. No waste, no fuss,” Dick says, brightly. “I have thought this through, you know.”

“Do you actually trust that they’ve maintained safe temperature conditions?” Tim says. He finds the website and scrolls down a little further website. “You need to package them in clear plastic too.”

Dick’s face falls. 

“Maybe you should call Alfred. He’ll know what to do.”

Dick makes a face. “Ugh. So embarrassing.” The motion sensor alarm goes and Dick grabs for the laptop. He doesn’t look like he’d eaten the equivalent of two and a half pizzas. “Saved by the bell.”

They get a meat feast pizza without a side order of robbery.

***

Dick puts Alfred on speaker phone and explains the situation. 

Tim can hear a tinny version of Alfred’s dry chuckle down the phone. “Master Tim is quite right about the food banks. You’d’ve been better off ordering the ice cream. I believe that’s fully packaged on pizza delivery menus.”

“But none of the crimes have involved ice cream orders. It’s harder to fake and not as common an order, I guess.”

“In that case, you’ve missed the obvious solution. You're well acquainted with several persons who would choose to eat pizza by the dozen and have frequently tried to strip my kitchen down to the last bread roll.”

“Oh!” Dick actually facepalms. “Thanks, Alfred. You’re the best. Clean up by Flash family it is.” He turns to Tim. “Think Impulse wants to visit Bludhaven?”

Tim nods. "Yeah, but it's Kid Flash now."

“Don’t get food poisoning,” Alfred says as a farewell. “I'm off to sleep now and I’ve got a lot to do for Master Bruce’s charity Gala on Wednesday and I won’t have time to nurse you back to health if you do.” 

***

Now they aren't worrying that the pizza needs to be edible, at least to people other than Bart Allen, they start to look at the more "interesting" pizza options. “This place has a mac and cheese pizza,” Dick says, waving the menu for Pizza-rama. “We have to get that.”

“Nope, there’s one with curry and yoghurt at Pizza Delight,” Tim says. “I think that’s the oddest. Or maybe the one with mashed potato.” He snorts. "I know someone who’d genuinely like that one.”

Dick raises an eyebrow in query.

“Uh, it’s Steph’s favourite food.” His cheeks heat a little but he doesn’t blush.

“And how is Steph? You haven’t really talked about her much lately.”

“She’s good, I guess. We've been seeing a lot of each other but it’s kind of weird.” Tim doesn't know how to explain the Steph situation. She's amazing but she confuses him a lot. More even than Dick sometimes.

Dick scans his face and whatever he sees there makes him change the subject, to Tim’s relief. “Well, the place I usually order from has what amounts to an entire Chinese takeout on one of theirs. I’ve never quite had the courage to try it.”

“We totally should!”

***

"If they're tapping phone lines to pizza places they'll notice that we're placing a lot of orders." Tim points out in the middle of Shaun of the Dead. He wonders if British people keep cricket bats by the door to defend themselves like people here use baseball bats?

"Eh. They'll assume that we're playing a prank or there's a party and we're wasted. It could even work to our advantage, if they think we're not really paying attention. As far as they know, no one's put the pattern together." Dick makes a face. "Sometimes I despair of my colleagues."

***

The motion sensor buzzer goes off and Dick sighs as he picks up the laptop to check the camera feed. They're getting blasé about the situation now and Tim is half convinced that this is, at least as far as the case is going, a waste of time. But it's great to hang out with Dick, so he doesn't mention it. They changed their approach several pizzas ago, placing several at once in advance to arrive in intervals and so far it's paying off. They are getting more efficient.

Tim is updating his spread sheet with order information when Dick said, "Fuck!"

Tim turns to him curiously, raising an eyebrow.

"It might be our guy. He's got the plain cap and the pizza box looks right. Get ready."

Tim shoves his laptop under the sofa for safety and follows Dick to the door.

The door opens on a boy of Tim's age with his head down staring at the floor. He doesn't seem nervous. 

It's a false alarm. The Pizzas To Go logo is tiny.

***  
They've been pretty basic with the disguises. Baseball caps pulled low and concealing hoodies mostly, but Tim thinks they should do better. He says as much to Dick through a mouthful of pizza with noodles and hoisin sauce on it. It's actually not that bad. "Also I think Alvin Draper should make an appearance."

"I think that can be arranged," Dick says and fetches a box from his bedroom. "Alvin's the one with the terrible facial hair and accent, right?" 

Tim dips into the box and finds all the bits he needs to make Alvin and heads to the bathroom. 

Dick stops him halfway there. "There's a better lit mirror in my room." He follows Tim in and sits on the messy bed watching as Tim slicks down his hair and applies the false hair to his chin. 

It takes Tim longer than usual as he's having trouble concentrating with glimpses of Dick moving around behind him. Sometimes he wishes he was Alvin, because Alvin would do something about the way he feels, screw the consequences. Tim, however, thinks far too much about the possible outcomes. Eventually he gets the goatee fixed and puts the magnetic nose and earrings in place.

Dick chokes with laughter when Tim turns round. 

"What ya laughin' at?" Tim glares at him, channelling Alvin for all he's worth.

"Sorry. It's just…" A buzzer sounds and they go and check who's there. 

The girl delivering pizza looks relieved when she sees Tim. He can't imagine why. Alvin Draper's kind of shady. She looks him up and down and cocks her head to one side. "You don't look like a dessert pizza kinda guy." 

Tim wonders what a dessert pizza kinda guy looks like. "Sometimes I can be," he says with Alvin's smirk and she blushes. 

"I get that."

He can hear Dick walking up behind him. The girl's eyes widen and there is the Dick Grayson effect. Tim has to hide his own double take when he looks behind him. Dick's taken off his hoodie and he's wearing a shoulder-length black wig with a centre parting and a half buttoned plaid shirt. He'd forgotten what Dick looked like with long hair although this is marginally better than the mullet. He thinks Dick is trying to look grungy but it mostly succeeds in looking like the cover of one of the romance novels that appear in grocery stores. It's a bit disturbing. 

Tim hands her the money and she drops it as she fumbles stuffing it into her money belt. "Uh, bye," she says as Tim shuts the door firmly behind her. 

"Seriously?" He says as soon as she's gone. "What are you even supposed to be? Fabio?" 

"Shut up." Dick says. "Hey, Alvin was kinda fun. He clearly gets more girls than you do."

"What?" 

"The pizza girl. She was into Alvin."

"No, she wasn't."

Dick winks at him. "You know I'd really like to meet Mister Sarcastic. I've heard interesting things."

***

Tim takes the pizza into the kitchen and covers it in plastic wrap and slots the box into the space in the fridge. He returns to find Dick fast asleep on the couch, head bowed on this chest and one hand hanging loose over the arm of the chair. Tim doesn't have the heart to wake him and takes the opportunity to study him. Sleeping is the only time Dick is still. He definitely looks thinner and there are dark rings under his eyes. Tim can see a few new scars, on his cheekbone and above his eye, as if his mask had cut into him after an impact. They aren't supposed to do that. He has more than a few days worth of stubble on his cheeks, which makes him look older. Dick usually liked to keep himself clean shaven, so Tim wonders if it's for disguise purposes. 

Tim leaves him there and takes the phone into the kitchen to order the next batch of pizzas.

***

Tim makes the executive decision not to wake Dick because the odds are against this actually getting solved tonight and it's already 4.30 am. But when the buzzer goes and he glances at the feed he realises that the man walking past fits the exact description of the perp, right down to the lack of logos on his clothes. Tim can't see the writing on the box from this angle but he looks a little too tense. It could be a false alarm again and Tim is pretty sure he can take this guy but this is Dick's case. He puts his hand on Dick's shoulder and Dick jerks awake.

"We've got a possibility."

Dick's eyes go from drowsy to wide open at his words, as though they flicked a switch in his brain. He glances at the camera feed, and jumps to his feet just as the doorbell rings. Tim can see the word 'pizza' in red letters on the box very clearly now, held in the man's gloved hands.

Dick yells, "Coming!" in a lazy voice and stretches and shakes out his limbs and walks to the door, pulling the cap more firmly down over his eyes. Tim follows him but stays out of eyeshot of the door. No need to make the guy think twice about doing his thing. 

Dick waits a few beats before opening the door. The delivery guy is holding the pizza in one hand and the other is now in his pocket. 

"That'll be $26.80," the delivery guy says. That isn't the price of the pizza they ordered and Tim stays alert. 

Dick pretends to fumble getting the money from his wallet and hands over a wad of bills. Instead of taking them the guy shoves the pizza box violently into Dick's hands and pulls out a knife. He demands, "Hand me you wallet." 

Dick drops the pizza and throws the wallet at the guy's face as a distraction. It doesn't work. The guy isn't as much of an amateur as Tim expected and he keeps the knife steady and uses his free hand to deflect the heavy wallet.

"Pick that up and hand it to me slowly," the guy says, his voice is menacing and Tim might be intimidated if he was on his own. Dick's doing a pretty good job of pretending to be cowed by it. Dick lets the guy get in close as he hands over the wallet and lets the guy press his knife against his throat and cut into the skin. Then Dick ducks away and disarms him with what looks like a flailing arm. The knife falls to the ground in the hallway and Dick manoeuvers them both into the apartment and slams the door behind them 

That must be Tim's cue as he comes forward and kicks the guy's knees to make him collapse. Tim's right about the training, because the guy avoids most of the kick and stays on his feet, punching Tim several times, one getting him in the face. He misses his Robin suit

Dick uses the time to secure the door and takes the guy down with a swift kick. He pins him to the floor and Tim hands him the cable ties that were ready on the table by the door. 

"Fuck you!" the guy says, struggling against Dick's weight and his bound wrists.

"Dude," Dick says, still in character. "You just tried to rob me. What the fuck?"

The guy struggles some more. "Hey Alvin," Dick says to Tim, "you'd better call the cops." 

Tim fetches the cell phone they've been using to order the pizza and makes the call.

***

It takes about twenty minutes for the cops to arrive and they arrive at the same time as a cute girl with the real pizza. 

Dick pretends to be in shock when the cops arrive and they obviously don't recognise him. Tim does most of the talking and explains that they took the guy out mostly by accident. The cut Dick let himself get and Tim's rapidly darkening bruises work as evidence against him. 

The girl, Mandy, helps them out a lot when she takes one look at the scene and says, "Oh, man, my buddy had this happen to him a few weeks ago on a delivery. They didn't get the guy though." That makes the cops start asking questions and the guy admits that he's done it before.

***

After the cops have gone with the fake delivery guy and they've given Mandy a really good tip for her troubles and walked her to her car. Dick turns to Tim. "Huh. That actually worked."

"What?" 

"It was such a long shot," Dick admits, "but I thought that it might be faster than trying to find phone taps all over the city."

Tim starts to laugh. "It really was. I can't believe that we only had to make fifteen orders before he took our bait." 

"I don't know. That's a lot of pizza."

"A lot of bad pizza." Tim makes a face and remembers the mac and cheese creation that's just arrived. 

"Well, you know who to call to help with that." Dick laughs. "We had fun, right?" Dick says and he sounds almost hesitant.

Tim thinks back over the evening and the investigation, his bruises and the revolting food and the teasing. It's exactly his favourite kind of evening. "Yeah, we did. It was good."

Dick grins widely. "I'm going to put on another movie. Does Spider-Man sound good to you?"

Tim nods, smiles back helplessly and goes to call Bart.


End file.
